Business

Aiming to promote growth in the telecom sector, the DoT is apparently considering implementing a Baby Bell-like split of BSNL into four regional arms - North, South, East and West.

According to the proposal, the North and Western arms would merge with MTNL's Delhi and Mumbai operations respectively. All four arms along with a mobile unit - BSNL Mobile, and an infrastructure unit - BSNL Infrastructure would operate under the aegis of a parent company - BSNL Holdings.

Intel has decided to kill the Bangalore based Whitefield project. The much hyped processor would have been the first to be designed and developed entirely in India, but Intel India pretty much shot itself in the foot when it had to let 250 employees go over an audit scandal. Following the axeing of a significant portion of his department, the Whitefield project head jumped ship in August, thereby (presumably) prompting the slide.

UK based Vodafone has bought a 10.05% stake in Bharti Televentures Limited - owners of the brand Airtel - India's largest mobile operator. The deal worth USD 1.5 billion, is said to be the largest ever foreign investment in India, and marks Vodafone's second foray into the Indian market. The British giant had previously invested in RPG Cellular, but sold its stake to Aircel in 2003.

Incidentally, Vodafone's current CEO is an Indian - Arun Sarin.

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Bharti Infotel has been issued a show cause notice by the Indian government for violating its ISP license. This is apparently because Bharti's networks were used to receive VOIP traffic, which were subsequently routed illegally to the public telephone network by the end user. The DoT has submitted Bharti with a bill of Rs.10.1 crore, besides asking for an additional performance bank guarantee of Rs 3.6 crore.